


Stars

by EzraTheBlue



Series: One Word [5]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Metaphor, Slash if you squint, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 05:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14074275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzraTheBlue/pseuds/EzraTheBlue
Summary: Kougaiji ponders the stars that shine brightest.





	Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a one-word prompt: "Stars."
> 
> I saved the best for last.

_Stars_

In this remote place, the sky looked endless, black as the bottom of an inkwell, flecked with millions upon millions of constellations like gold dust spread in a bed of black velvet. Kougaiji could never hope to enumerate all of them, no matter how long he lay in the midnight grass in this deep, lonely valley and gazed.

He heard the grass rustle beside him, as gentle as a gust of wind settling over a desert, then a familiar, rough voice: “Stargazing again, Kou? It seems like I find you like this a lot.” Dokugakuji’s chuckle rang in his ears, and Kougaiji blinked his eyes shut and sighed as he felt Dokugakuji’s hand on his scalp.

“Do you know I was sealed for five hundred years? Held fast by holy magic, in stasis, for centuries?” He heard Dokugakuji hum his acknowledgement, and exhaled softly. “I was fortunate enough to be sealed facing a window. Sometimes, I think I can remember those five hundred years, watching the sun rise and fall fifteen-thousand-odd times, watching the starry sky change and turn with every season.”

“Five hundred years of starry skies, huh? I’d think you’d get sick of ‘em.” Dokugakuji chuckled again, but Kougaiji shook his head. 

“No. It was my one reprieve, really.” He could see the reflections of the stars inside his eyelids, pinpricks of white light. He squeezed his eyes shut until the light got too bright, and blinked his eyes open again as he felt Dokugakuji’s thumb push a stray lock of hair from his forehead, then scraped his hair from his face for himself. “When I was small, my mother and father would take me out at night to dark places with no torches, so the stars could shine brighter in the dark. My mother could name so many constellations, and my father told me that the stars were named for great kings and creatures of myth. He told me that I could join them someday, too, that my star could be the brightest of all.”

“No pressure there.” Kougaiji could hear Dokugakuji smirking, imagine his exact expression, without seeing him. They were close enough that Kougaiji thought he’d know that face at a mile’s distance, though he’d hoped he might never have to look at Dokugakuji from that far away. “The bright stars are the guiding stars, right? Like the North star to anchor sailors on the sea.“ 

"So they say, though I admit I often chart by Sirius. The Dog star.” Kougaiji found it with his gaze, then stretched a hand out to touch it. “That one is the brightest, even more than the North star. I’m used to how Canis Major moves by now.”  
“The Dog star, the brightest star. That’s you, huh?” Dokugakuji’s fingers scraped Kougaiji’s scalp, mussing his hair. Kougaiji wanted to laugh.

“My father said so, or that I would be.” He closed his eyes again. “And yet, that always worried me. On the battlefield, in the fires, or when Houtou was bright with activity, the smaller stars, the weaker ones, those that just didn’t shine, they seemed to fade away.”

Dokugakuji hummed, his palm stilling against Kougaiji’s head. “They taught us about light pollution in school. That’s why they look so much brighter out here, where there’s no other light.” Kougaiji wished Dokugakuji’s hand would move.

“When they’re alone, yes. But the brightest stars always looked lonely to me, outshining those nearest them.” He sighed and settled into the damp grass, the cold dew beading on his forehead and catching in his hair, and he opened his eyes to the skies again, focusing on the Dog star, then letting his gaze travel to the tiny stars in its constellation.  Kougaiji wished he could better see those unnamed, almost forgotten flecks of light that surely shined like diamonds and gold when one looked close enough, but which were so small, insignificant, from here. “When my father told me how bright he expected me to be, I was first proud, but then I wondered if I would be lonely, shining so bright.”

“And are you?”

Kougaiji blinked again, and his head and hair were cold. Dokugakuji wasn’t there. Dokugakuji slept in a different place, far away.

Kougaiji couldn’t answer, because he was alone in this tiny valley, in the deep dark, lonely, and he no longer had anyone he could confide it in. 

He had never wanted to shine so bright that he put out the lights around him.


End file.
